[snip]

Joe felt uncomfortable as soon as his feet were able to feel solid ground beneath of him again. He remained in that manner until he could feel everything else and make sure that all his pieces were in their appropriate places. He’d once asked an engineer to explain precisely how transporters worked. The engineer had gone on for thirty minutes with the explanation but when Joe started to ask specific questions all of the large words boiled down to one thing. It works because it does.” All that and something to do with quantum whatever and how nobody really understood it. Ever since then Joe had been twice as dubious about transporters than he had been from the beginning.

As he felt that everything was all right, he finally decided to breathe. Looking around him he asked the away team. “Everyone okay?”

“Yes Sir,” replied Cara. “Don’t worry. I dislike the Transporter too. It’s a very common thing to dislike it.”

Richard looked around at their surroundings, satisfied that the team was safe for now he replied ‘’Aye Cmdr’’ then turned to the CSO ‘’Its best you take that tricorder of yours out of the bag and check for any thing living and breathing in the vicinity.

Lance slowly walked up a small hill and crouched down and looked down from his perch.

When Verity materialized on the planet surface, she felt the tingle she usually felt when she went through the transporter, like the atoms in her body were settling back in place. “Yep, all in one piece.” She said with a smile as she looked at her hands and legs. Then she unzipped her jumpsuit to grab her tricorder out of her side bag.

After everyone had been atomized in proper order, the first thing they would find is a lot of the air smelled of thick sulphury and other icky pollutants from uncontrolled strip mining and high end modern industry like the Klingons often did on their various conquered worlds. The air was breathable, but it clung to their throats like an annoying thing tickling their throats and noses at times.

The security winced as he breathed the polluted air .

Verity let out a couple of coughs as she scanned the area.

Cara was fascinated. Many planets went through such polluted phases as they quickly industrialised, without any regard for public health. She had read about the phenomena is all the text books, but never seen it for real. The text books gave examples of air too toxic to breath, planets that were polluted slums without clean water to drink, and where wildlife had been taken to edge of extinction.

The ground underfoot was similarly polluted, covered dirt and dead grass with hunks of metal and scrap all over the place. A few tougher bits of weeds here and there had somehow clung on through the sickly yellow water provided and grown in spots about the large hunks of metal and rocks. Overhead the sky was a tinged dark blue-orange hue due to the aforementioned pollutants.

“Ugh,” said Verity, as she frowned at all the pollutants under her boot, “the Klingons really did a terrible number on this planet. I am afraid to assess the condition on the inhabitants.”

Scans Verity soon showed there was no local life for a couple hundred yards over the hill and down into the ramshackle valley. No signs of Klingons were in evidence either. There were a few smaller life signs of likely hardy and/or sickly animal life hiding out of sight but nothing that seemed dangerous yet to them.

“No signs of life in the immediate area, Commander. However, I think we will find some just over the hill.” She pointed her tricorder in the direction of the hill. “We should head over that way.”

As Wolf would get to the rise of the hill and peer down he saw much as had been seen on the bridge. A wide dug out valley of wreckage from disruptor fire and demo charges, used to destroy modern machinery, setup interspersed with rusty metal shacks or the occasional slightly cleaner pre-fab huts the Klingons had provided those who they favored. In the middle of the valley a large group of locals were bickering back and forth over a variety of things it seems, some about water bottles, other about food supplies, others still about mogrel animals for one thing or another, still more arguing for who was in charge or favored by their departed gods, it went on and on. The real details of this though could not be made out from over 200 yards away beyond a few snatched shouts or hollers.

Cara really wished they could get closer and hear what the arguments were about, but that would be against the Captain’s orders. So far, everything appeared to be just as the intelligence reports had said. Which meant they were going to have a tough time getting through to these natives that they were friendly and wanted to help.

At the center of this all though a small 20x20 circle like some kind of ritualistic arena for sports combat the Klingons favored showed two men shouting the most and waving threatening gestures and bits of pipe at each other. Two groups on either side of the ring were doing the same to their counterparts on the other. Clearly this was some kind of fight for who was in control or the like.

Richard made his way up the hill,crouched in order to avoid detection, making sure he stayed hidden .Once he was sure the place was safe the security looked down at the rest of the team signaling that it was safe for them to climb up.

At Richard’s signal, Verity hurried up the hill and crouched behind him, gripping her tricorder tightly in her hand waiting for the next order.

Cara stayed close to Joe, and wondered why the others were splitting up. She thought they were meant to stay hidden and be covert.

Joe could only give himself a palm slap as he watched his security detail scamper up the hill. Despite the fact that he had ordered them to cover the flanks of the hill, there they were climbing the thing. No one looking behind them and unable to look forward for too long without someone in the village seeing them. He decided to do the best that he could under the circumstances. He squatted down at the bottom of the hill in the middle of it so that he could watch behind the away team for anything coming up behind them. He opened his communicator then and called out to the science officer. =/\= “Lieutenant Verity. You’re by yourself at the summit. Go up check for further life forms and types, types and condition. Make it a good medical scan so that Doctor Cross can examine the data. Also scan for weapons and any sort of operational power sources or any other types of advanced technology they may be hiding over there. When you finish that it’s your call. If you think we’re finished, you call the ship and get us out of here. Oh, and security? Hold positions., Milligan out. =/\=

Verity responded into her communicator, “Um…Commander, what about me getting captured and put to work in the mines? Just kidding! Orders acknowledged, sir. I will let you know what I discover then make a recommendation.” She proceeded to move further up to collect the requested data.

Cara didn’t appreciate the humour about Klingon mines. Some of her family had been pressed into service in Klingon mines. It was not something to joke about so flippantly.

“I’d really like to study this culture close up, in detail, Sir,” Cara told Joe, “but looking as I do, even with make-up, I will never pass for a native, and without being able to get close enough to hear the whole conversation, or their body language and behaviours, there is little more that I can do here. I do think that with make-up and prosthetics, then humans and vulcans could pass for the Wal3 locals, and I’ll make that recommendation to the Captain.”

• Cara, Ship’s Anthropologist